TV is experiencing a new golden age thanks to creative, innovative series and mini series featuring top-class casts. The 10th Zurich Film Festival will remain abreast of this new development by introducing the out-of-competition ZFF TVision section, which will present on the big screen productions that signal new trends and/or have garnered attention from the global TV world.

The programme will be revealed on September 12, 2014. Tickets are available from September 16. Innovative new beginnings with global impact The late 1990s signalled the start of a new chapter in US television history: SEINFELD, THE SOPRANOS and a whole host of other titles came to represent a genus of serial fiction that blurred the formal lines between auteur/studio film and (quality) television. The result of this seminal and innovative emergence is a new golden age of television entertainment, which not only avails itself of edgy characters to tell complex tales in a gripping, often provocative manner, but also sees itself as a vehicle for the analysis of both society and current times.

A signal highly appreciated by artistic personnel, given that it allows them more freedom than the largely conventional blockbuster/sequel model currently offered to authors and directors by the big Hollywood companies. It comes as no surprise then, that such virtuosos as Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks and a whole plethora of outstanding character actors and actresses are taking a shine to this previously shunned medium. Public demand has also grown - so much so that remakes of erstwhile successes are giving way to mini-series adaptations of such classics as PSYCHO (under the title BATES MOTEL), HANNIBAL, FARGO, ROSEMARY’S BABY, GHOST, ROBIN HOOD and OUTBREAK. This development is by no means restricted to the Motherland of the TV series. Europe and Asia, where South Korea in particular is stirring up the markets with its close-to-reality series, are also experiencing the boom. The third season of SHERLOCK will be aired by the BBC; Agnieszka Holland’s historical drama BURNING BUSH by Czech TV; Italy’s RAI is planning the 6-part series THE NAME OF THE ROSE after Umberto Eco’s novel and Denmark, the series wonderland responsible for the now cult series BORGEN and the no-less successful productions ARVINGERNE – THE LEGACY and 1864, is currently working on the multinationally-financed, eight-part crime thriller THE TEAM, featuring Swiss-born Carlos Leal. ZFF TVision presents the international trends Zurich Film Festival intends to stay abreast of this image media convergence and will, for its 10th anniversary, install into its programme the out-of-competition section ZFF TVision. ZFF TVision will present on the big screen series and mini series that have already garnered attention from the global TV world or are close to a breakthrough. In doing so, ZFF also allows audiences insight into the latest home entertainment trends. The programme will be revealed on September 12, 2014.

Tickets are available from September 16. About the Zurich Film Festival Celebrating its special milestone 10th anniversary, the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) has established itself as one of the world’s top Films Festivals, discovering and promoting independent voices and talent from around the world, showcasing a diverse array of international films and serving as the setting for many World and European premieres.

The aim of the Zurich Film Festival is to offer audiences an insight into the work of young, upcoming filmmakers from around the globe and to promote the exchange of ideas between established film workers, young talent and the public. ZFF is organized by Spoundation Motion Picture GmbH, based in Zurich, in cooperation with local institutions and sponsors. The Zurich Film Festival cooperates with numerous distributors and producers from Switzerland and abroad.

The idea to found a festival in Zurich came from Karl Spoerri and Nadja Schildknecht, who serve as Directors of the Festival.

From rollicking comedies to sensitive dramas, from riveting, political documentaries to hot-blooded romance, the AICE Israeli Film Festival presents the best of contemporary Israeli cinema to Australian audiences. Produced by Palace Cinemas and the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, the Festival is the only Australia-wide showcase for Israeli film. Now in its 11th year, it continues to grow and diversify in 2014 with the inclusion of exceptional short films perfectly paired with some of the outstanding documentaries on offer.

Diverse, complex, inspirational, and turbulent, the films screening at the AICE Israeli Film Festival present a kaleidoscope of Israeli society, exploring the myriad of stories from one of the most diverse and multi-racial countries in the world. Albert Dadon, Chairman of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange said, “We have been spoiled for choice this year with Israel producing world-class films which are completely unique, and entirely stunning on so many levels.”

The exciting selection of films in this year’s program reflects the growing strength of Israeli cinema, which has bloomed over the past decade. Israel’s cinematic prowess is being increasingly recognised internationally with five Israeli films featured at the Cannes this year including Camera D’Or winner Self Made which opens this year’s Festival. The 2014 AICE Israeli Film Festival showcases many of the best Israeli films from the last twelve months, including prizewinners from a number of prestigious festivals including Cannes, Sundance and Jerusalem, as well as winners from Docaviv, Haifa, Tel Aviv SIFF and the Ophirs (Israeli ‘Oscars’).

Highlights of the 2014 AICE Israeli Film Festival include opening night film Self Made, Camera d’Or winnr Shira Geffen’s story of two women – one Israeli, the other Palestinian – who find themselves living life on the other side after a mix-up at the border; closing night film The Green Prince, a captivating, terse documentary about a spy and a handler who forge an unexpected friendship, directed by Nadav Schirman; Kidon, a breezy throwback to the caper comedies of the 1960s and 1970s with a star-studded cast, and riotous plot; Album 61, a documentary about a boy trained by his father his entire life for the World Chess Championship – a juicy battle, rife with passion, power and money; Sweets, the allegorical struggle for the candy market between an Israeli corporation and an Arab entrepreneur, nominated for seven Israeli Academy Awards; and The Kindergarten Teacher, an ambitious, aesthetically potent Israeli drama at once bizarre, beautiful and deeply unsettling, following a woman obsessed with her 5-year-old student and his gift for poetry by Israeli writer-director Nadav Lapid.

Enriching the festival in 2014, short feature films which would have otherwise never been viewed on Australian cinema screens will be aligned with engrossing documentaries. The Visit will be paired with documentary Shadow in Baghdad to explore the relationship between father and daughter, while Wherever You Go and In Between explore religion in marriage. Comedic documentary Handa Handa 4 and short Everywhere But Here also depict the complications of marriage, while the hilarious short Welcome and Our Condolences is combined with Album 61 to portray a snapshot of the experiences of Russian-Jews.

Tropfest Australia today reveal a further addition to the line-up of Tropfest Roughcut, an engaging film industry event taking place on July 26, at Sydney’s Darling Quarter.

From actors and comedians to producers and directors, the lineup of speakers for this full day event will explore a wide range of topics, all to do with creativity in the film and television industry.

Prolific director, Alex Proyas, best known for films such as I, Robot (2004), The Crow (1994) and Dark City (1998) will be Keynote Speaker at the event, talking about his incredible career with event MC Marc Fenell. Proyas is currently working on the highly anticipated Gods of Egypt starring Geoffrey Rush, Gerard Butler and Game of Thrones heart throb Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

Proyas will join other Tropfest Roughcut speakers already announced including Wolf Creek star actor John Jarratt, celebrated motion picture stills photographer Jasin Boland, Australian comedy great Dan Ilic, and MC of Tropfest Roughcut, versatile radio and television personality Marc Fennell.

Rouhgcut attendees will also be privileged with the incredible opportunity to engage directly with representatives of Facebook AU, who will be conducting a session on social media marketing and how this continually expanding social media platform can help filmmakers reach audiences on a larger scale.

Now in its fourth year, Tropfest Roughcut will include a mixture of invaluable networking sessions, informative panel discussions and conversations with industry greats. The tickets to the full day-event are a mere $30 and are expected to sell out quickly.

Roughcut is proudly supported by Screen NSW and Nikon Australia.

Entries for this year’s Tropfest officially open on August 13 and will close on October 2, 2014. Films must be no longer than seven minutes and must include this year’s Tropfest Signature Item (TSI): “MIRROR”. The Trop Jr TSI this year is “FLY”. It is completely up to entrants as to how they interpret and include the TSI in their film and filmmakers are encouraged to be as creative or as literal as they like.

This year’s festival is expected to be Tropfest’s biggest yet with scores of filmmakers around the country competing for the chance to be one of the 16 finalists whose short films will premiere live to a national audience of around 150,000, as well as broadcast free-to-air on SBS 2 to an even bigger home audience.

A panel of industry and celebrity judges will select a winner live on the Festival Night, with the First Prize-winning filmmaker to take home an incredible prize pack including: a brand new Toyota, $10,000 cash, a trip to Los Angeles for a week of meetings with film executives thanks to Motion Picture Association and the Australian Screen Association plus a Nikon D800 + $2,000 RRP worth of lenses and accessories.

Tropfest had humble beginnings at the Tropicana Café in Sydney’s Darlinghurst where an eager crowd of 200 showed up to watch a short film screening which John Polson had organised. Twenty two years on, Tropfest attracts a live audience of around 150,000 in Australia and the Festival has grown internationally with standalone competitions in New Zealand, South East Asia, New York and the Middle East.

THE DETAILS

The fourth annual Tropfest Roughcut will take place at Lend Lease Theatre, Darling Quarter on Saturday July 26.

The Europe-wide, one of a kind workshop program SOFA - School of Film Agents - which supports international film professionals and mediators in the realization of film cultural projects will take place from August 15th – 24th, 2014 in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Breslau). Founded in 2013, the second edition of SOFA’s workshop-initiative will invite young „film agents“ from Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, Central Asia, the Baltic Republics and, for the first time, Greece to work together with experts on their projects with the goal of further developing the regional film culture and industries in their respective countries.

Within the framework of the »Works in Progress« screenings at the 49th International Film Festival Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) – the most important film cultural event for the SOFA-relevant territories – Director, Nikolaj Nikitin introduced the eight partipants to take part in the second edition of SOFA. „From innovative VoD solutions to a large-scale national cinema / theatrical digitialization project, to the founding of a regional film subsidy initiative: the breadth of these participating projects reflects - with impressive ideas - the film-structural challenges we are attempting to address in those respective regions“, states Nikitin.

In the presence of numerous SOFA partners and former participants, Nikitin presented the following eight participants of the second edition:

· Cristian Hordila, Romania: »Cluj City Film Fund«. A film fund with which Cluj-Napoca intends to re-open its doors to the film world, re-creating a film production centre around the city.

· Marija Stojanovic, Serbia: »What I See - Program for Audience Development and Stimulation of Critical Approach in the Field of Audio-Visual Culture and Arts«. What we see is what we are: an educational film project for Serbia.

· Angeliki Vergou, Greece: »Octapus - A delicious new way to watch Greek films«. A VoD-Platform for Greek films.

· Jakub Viktorín, Slovakia: »DDS – Digital Database of Slovakia: Your Personal Online Library of All Film Content Slovakia can Provide«. An internet-based database revolving around the film culture of Slovakia.

· Jonas Weydemann, Germany: »Directors Collection«. A b2b platform connecting producers/worldsales directly with national cinemas around Europe, providing a transparent system for licensor and licensee.

The success of SOFA has been proven: numerous projects from the first edition of SOFA 2013 have already been able to be realized or are shortly before. For example, Leana Jaluske’s project „Doktok“ – a distribution initiative for Estonian documentary films – was able to be established with the help of SOFA. Melinda Boros is currently leading the „TIFF Studio Workshops“ in Cluj and Sonja Topalovic was recently able to rejoice over Eurimages funding for her interactive database „FBO – Festival Box Office“.

SOFA – School of Film Agents is a joint project of the Filmplus gUG (Cologne) and the Fundacja Filmplus (Warsaw) together with the city of Wroclaw (Breslau) and the Polish Film Institute, funded by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Federal Foreign Office, the International Visegrad Fund, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, The Creative Europe Desk Poland, The Alfred Toepfer Foundation and EAVE – European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs and supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Poland (Krakow), Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania and its Head Office in Germany, and with the support of the Film Commission Poland and the Wroclaw Film Commission.

After a record breaking 2013, Revelation Perth International Film Festival has announced its expanded 2014 program.

Revelation is acclaimed as Western Australia’s leading international film festival and annual screen culture event and firmly established as Australia’s filmmakers’ festival. It is dedicated to presenting independent cinema from around the globe in a context that explores film’s great traditions, its contemporary movements and its future directions.

Curated once again by Jack Sargeant, the Revelation Perth International Film Festival sees a diverse selection of films drawn from across the world. Boasting Revelation's commitment to signature works, independent cinema, genre film, world cinema, and unique breathtaking movies, this year is no exception with a program drawn from Australia, Iceland, Israel, France, Taiwan, Mexico and all points in between. Featuring award-winning movies, world, international and local premieres, new Australian works and live performances, Revelation is a celebration of the strength of all aspects of film culture.

Expanding across the city and wider community, Revelation plays a central role not just in the Perth calendar but also nationally and internationally. Featuring dedicated programs from the Iranian Film Festival, Revel8 and ScreenWest, once again Revelation will entertain and inspire audiences, while RevCon will feature some of the festival's many guests exploring key aspects of the industry at dedicated panels and workshops. Meanwhile Revelation Academic sees scholars - both those from academic institutions and independent researchers - delivering papers and exploring cinema and visual culture, in the second instalment of this critical platform that remains utterly unique to any Australian film festival.

According to Program Director, Jack Sargeant "at this point Revelation seems uniquely positioned. As a festival we have a lot of Australian premieres, whether the larger budget indie movies or low budget works – these are films that come to Perth before screening elsewhere. This year’s selection ranges from comedies to genre movies, from animations to documentaries, experimental works to cult movies to world cinema. I hope that, as ever, Revelation continues to satisfy all of those who demand something more from cinema."

"The expanded program exhibits extraordinary diversity and is at point on reflecting the current creative mood internationally" says festival founder and Chairman Richard Sowada. "As a community we should all be proud of being part of the lives of these films as they break".

Highlights of Revelation 2014 will also include industry guests and speakers, seminars and masterclasses; Under The Skin - a breathtaking sci-fi film featuring Scarlett Johansson; Sight/Unseen – a live musical and visual arts performance by Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo and Leah Singer; ScreenWest’s annual showcase of emerging WA filmmaking talent in Get Your Shorts On!; the return of hugely popular Iranian Film Festival; the Revel-8 super 8 short film festival and the WA Screen Awards.

Attracting audiences of over 10,000 people annually, Revelation continues to grow and has become the "go-to" event for independent filmmakers, distributors and discerning audiences. 2014 will feature 116 films, 8 world and international premieres and 35 Australian premieres.

Revelation is proudly supported by the Australian and West Australian governments through ScreenWest, Eventscorp and Screen Australia.

The Berlin International Film Festival is supporting the “Berlinale in Sendai” event for the second time. The event will take place on July 26 and 27 in Sendai City, a municipality in the Tohoku region that was severely damaged by the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.

For “Berlinale in Sendai”, the Berlinale section Generation is curating a programme with two emphases: films that entertain, and films that focus on coping positively in problematic living situations. The objective is to support and encourage inhabitants and those aiding them to continue their committed efforts to rebuild the region.

The project is once again being organised by the “Berlinale in Sendai” Executive Office, with support from the inhabitants of Sendai and numerous volunteers and sponsors from all over Japan.

“Culture provides the opportunity to convey a global sense of community. This year’s programme is our way of contributing to that feeling anew. We’re very pleased to support ‘Berlinale in Sendai’ again in 2014,” comments Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.

Guest of Honour of jubilee 10th edition of Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival is Serbian writer and director Djordje Kadijević, author of numerous unforgettable cinematic masterpieces and pioneer of fantastic cinema in ex-Yu region. We will pay tribute to him at the festival's closing ceremony, where he will receive our Honorary Vicious Cat award for lifetime achievement. He took his place among the giants of cinema already with his debut feature, gloomy wartime drama A Festivity (Praznik). Among the fans of the fantastic he is most known for his cult TV film She-Butterfly (Leptirica), the first Yugoslavian horror film. He is also an art critic, essayist, publicist and art theorist.

Djordje Kadijević was born in Šibenik, Croatia in 1933. An art historian by education, he started making in the late 1960s. He made a name for himself already with his award-winning first film A Festivity, a multi-layered masterpiece set in World War 2. His following films The Trek (Pohod, 1968), The Fiery One (Žarki, 1970) and The Colonel's Wife (Pukovnikovica, 1971) were also delaing with war. Very soon he also began working for television, his first TV film being medieval drama A Miracle (Čudo, 1971). In 1973 he made three groundbreaking fantastic films for the TV series entitled Tales of Mystery and Imagination: She-Butterfly, which was initially received with shock and panic, grim gothic romance A Maiden's Music (Devičanska svirka) and metaphysical dark fantasy The Protected One (Štićenik). He continued his career on televison with splendid movies such as The Oath (Zakletva, 1974) and The Death of Karadjordje (Karađorđeva smrt, 1983), and award-winning TV Series Vuk Karadžić (1987-1988). Gothic horror A Holy Place (Sveto mesto, 1990) was his long awaited return to a film made for cinemas.

In a special retrospective we will show his films A Miracle, She-Butterfly, The Protected One and A Holy Place.

10th Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival will take place from the 15th to 19th of July in Ljutomer, Slovenia. Check out the festival website for detailed information on this year's program.

Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival, taking place from the 15th to the 19th of July in Ljutomer, Slovenia, revealed its official selection.

The festival features four film competition programs: Vicious Cat (Best Feature Film), Noisy Cat (Best Music Documentary), Slak's Vicious Cat (Best Short Film) and Melies d'Argent (Nomination for Best European Fantastic Short Film award, given out by the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation).

The President of the Vicious Cat Jury is British director, producer and actor Michael Sarne, the Slak's Vicious Cat / Melies d'Argent Jury is presided by Slovenian comic book artist and film journalist Zoran Smiljanić, while the Noisy Cat Jury is once again headed by Slovenian rock journalist and promotor Igor Vidmar.

Also attending was rock historian, Richie Unterberger, author of the definitive Velvet Underground biopic, 'WHITE LIGHT WHITE HEAT', who gave an insightful video presentation on 1970 rock and roll as an interesting compliment to the Asian themed movie screening.

FREEDOM DEAL: The Story of Lucky (Synopsis) - May 4, 1970 – Cambodia. During the 1970 US-Vietnam conflict, a combined US & Army of South Vietnam military operation enters Cambodia to locate and destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sanctuaries. A Cambodian youth named Samnang (‘Lucky’) and an ornery but likable wedding musician make their way through the conflict – encountering landmines, surreal Cambodian ghosts known as ‘Arbs’, and marauding helicopters as they go.

Prime Focus was the first familiar Indian name that I noticed at the Communicasia-BroadcastAsia twin events, while the first Singaporean Indian booth I stopped at was t-eight. Two persons were busy demonstrating the merits of ‘slowing down your world’. In film parlance, that means using high speed cameras that, when played back at normal, much slower speeds, give you infra slow motion (slo-mo). The two were from the significantly large Tamil community of Indians that lives in Singapore. Senthilnathan M., the Founder, who is a Cinematographer, and Kalpana R., who is an Executive Producer and Writer. Quite apt—a writer named Kalpana (imagination)!

Senthilnathan, an award-winning cinematographer, has over a decade of cinematography experience, with works ranging from advertising to independent narratives. Says he, “We are extremely excited about our new addition: the Phantom Flex4K, an obscenely powerful piece of hardware. It has recording frame rates of 1,000 fps, 2,000 fps and 3,000 fps for 4k, 2k and HD video qualities. You can work without being connected to a laptop and have the creative freedom to move the camera about freely. That facilitates longer takes. It is of large capacity (up to 2 TB), and ‘hot swappable’. (A hot swappable device is a peripheral or component that can be removed or added while a computer is running. Replacing a device while a computer is powered on is called "hot swapping.") Phantom Cine flash drives allow shoots to go on longer before downloading, and let you easily incorporate the clips into your timeline. The Cine raw format ensures the fastest high-speed capture on.”

The camera was launched at the International Broadcasting Convention, September 13-17, 2013 in Amsterdam. In March 2014, director Brendon Bellomo and cinematographer Gregory Wilson used a Phantom Flex4K camera to capture a burning house fire, at 1,000 frames per second, in 4K resolution. Shooting at that resolution and quality consumes around 16GB of storage a second, so despite the 1TB and 2TB removable storage system that the Flex4K uses, every shot had to be meticulously planned; with an internal buffer of 32GB, each shot could be no longer than 2.2 seconds in length. This footage from March was the first video to be shot with the Flex4K. The result was staggering.

Director Bellomo has previously worked on visual effects for the Oscar-winning Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Wilson has used cameras like the Red EPIC, Sony F55, Phantom Flex and Canon 5D Mark II on a variety of shorts and other projects.

Watch fire video on:

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On BroadcastAsia 2014, Senthil shared then following thoughts:

“We are participating as exhibitors for the first time, though I have visited earlier editions of BroadcastAsia. There was good turn-out this year and the event was a good vantage point for your services and products to be seen, although it would be better to have it in one big hall, compared to the split rooms, which was the format here. People were confused over the layouts (so was this writer, Senthil).

I felt Marina Bay Sands wasn’t a very convenient location. It was better back in the early years, when it was held at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Center (not too far from MBS, and a stand-alone Exhibition Center, without a premium hotel attached to it).

It was much easier for loading of equipment and to get to. There were more eateries there too. (There are hardly any eateries around MBS).

This year’s edition of the 35thDurban International Film Festival (DIFF) sees a special focus on British Cinema. Supported by the British Council and its Connect ZA programme, the focus is Part of the SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015 cultural season taking place over the next two years.

In recognition of this season, DIFF presents a diverse snapshot of contemporary British cinema – including the strangely compelling Lilting, which tells the story of the triangular relationship between two gay men and one of their mothers, ’71 which is set in Belfast at the beginning of The Troubles and the highly endearing Frank, which chronicles the misadventures of a band of outsider musicians.

Other features include How I Live Now, a post-apocalyptic tale set in rural England in the wake of a nuclear bomb, and The Selfish Giant, a Dickensian tale of two working class boys who live on the knife’s edge of poverty and adolescence. Gone Too Far! offers a nuanced look at race in contemporary Britain, while Only Lovers Left Alive is the UK-produced downbeat vampire masterpiece from Jim Jarmusch.

British documentaries include InRealLife, which explores our relationship with the internet and social networking technology, the real-life heist drama Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers, 20 000 Days on Earth, which documents a fictitious day in the life of much-loved musician Nick Cave, Coach Zoran and His African Tigers which tells of the birth of the South Sudanese national soccer team, and the UK/SA co-production One Humanity, which documents the global anti-apartheid movement from the perspective of the two tribute concerts to Nelson Mandela that took place in London in 1988 and 1990.

In addition to this focus area in DIFF’s programming, the DIFF UK Focus also includes free public screenings of British films, preceded by a programme of short films from young South African filmmakers presented by the National Film and Video Foundation. These screenings will take place on Friday 18 July, Saturday 19 July, Friday 25 July and Saturday 26 July on the Bay of Plenty lawns on Durban’s Marine Parade.

Said Festival Manager, Peter Machen, "The collaboration between the British Council, the NFVF and the Durban International Film Festival for DIFF 2014 will help the festival to expand its festival base, attract diverse new audiences. The beach screenings at the Bay of Plenty will help to make the festival more inclusive by increasing the number of free screenings offered to the public. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Durban's beachfront, the event will also do much to infuse the festival with the spirit of freedom and the sharing of culture"

The Durban International Film Festival takes place from 17 – 27 July 2014. The festival includes more than 200 theatrical screenings and a full seminar and workshop programme, as well as the Wavescape Film Festival, the Wild Talk Africa Film Festival, and various industry initiatives, including the 7th Talents Durban (in cooperation with Talents Berlinale ) and the 5th Durban FilmMart co-production market (in partnership with the Durban Film Office). For more information go to www.durbanfilmfest.co.za

Fans of daring cinema and divine wine are gathering in Ljutomer, Slovenia, where the jubilee 10th Grossmann Festival starts today and will last until Saturday, July 19th. In five days it will offer a massive dose of horror, science fiction, thrillers, comedies, action and music documentaries from 23 countries from all around the world.

This year's guest of honour is Serbian director Djordje Kadijević, author of numerous cinematic masterpieces and pioneer of fantastic film in Yugoslavia. We will pay tribute to him at Saturday's Closing Ceremony where he will receive the Honorary Vicious Cat Award for lifetime achievement.

The festival will also feature art exhibitions, live concerts, workshops, book presentations and numerous wine tasting events. On Friday and Saturday there will also be a Subculture Fair at Ljutomer's Main Square, offering new and second hand DVDs, CDs, LPs, movie posters, books, comics and unique artifacts. The final spectacle will be provided by Zombie Quadrille, in which dancing couples at the height of decomposition will take us towards Guinness world record.

The festival will begin at 18:00h at Ljutomer's Culture House with the opening of two magnificent art exhibitions. Serbian artist Arpad Slančik will present his macabre sculptures under the title Mother and Dirty Children, while All the Wild Bunches of Zoran Smiljanić will bring joy with drawings and illustrations by renowned Slovenian comic book artist who is also a member of this year's short film jury.

The 150th anniversary of birth of Slovenian film pioneer after whom the festival was named will be celebrated with the opening film Efforts in Preserving the First Film Footage by Dr. Karol Grossmann, introduced by author Marko Mitja Feguš.

Our feature film competition will be kick-started by Spanish occult horror Asmodexia, introduced by co-writer /director Marc Carreté. Grossmann's audience knows him for his short film Castidermia which was shown in last year's Melies d'Argent competition. Asmodexia is his debut feature, a spine-chilling tale of exorcist priest and his granddaughter fighting against an epidemic of evil that will take you to the very edge of hell and beyond. Writing credits are shared by our European Fantastic Film Festival Federation colleague Mike Hostench, deputy director of Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival.

First fabulous item in our Noisy Cat competition will be documentary Persistent Invocation of Angels, director Slobodan Simojlović's portrait of legendary Serbian rock band Riblja čorba. Through interviews with current and former group members, their collaborators and contemporaries you will find out everything about the band's colourful history, from magnificent successes and unforgettable albums to tragedies and controversies, in their trademark straightforward fashion.

Film program will also offer hypnotic Argentinian neo-giallo Deep Sleep that has already won numerous awards on its triumphant journey through festivals all over the world, US indie sci-fi gem Time Lapse with its original take on the ever popular theme of timewarping, and program section On the Fantastic Side of the Alps featuring three Slovenian short films. Kresnik: The Lore of Fire by David Sipoš is inspired by ancient Slavic mythology and already became a part of history as the first Slovenian film project on Kickstarter. The irreverent Schupakface: Genesis is director Gašper Antauer's third film about the assfaced superhero who started his fight against crime in Grossmann's Little Workshop of Horrors four years ago. Food Fetish is a quirky short comedy by Miha Šubic whose short films have been screened on several past editions of Grossmann Festival.

More info on our film, wine and accompanying program can be found on our website www.grossmann.si.

Let the Vicious Cat roar into the night and fill our heads with cinematic delight!

The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) will hold its first ever Southeast Asian Film Lab as part of its 25th anniversary celebration this year.

The Southeast Asian Film Lab is a seven-day writing workshop aimed at emerging screenwriters and/or writer/directors from Southeast Asia aged between 18 and 35, with a focus on stories capturing the collective experiences of the past, present and future Southeast Asia, to be developed into feature length screenplays.

Mentors for the film lab include Akanga Films’ award-winning producer Fran Borgia, and independent filmmaker and co-founder of Da Huang Pictures Tan Chui Mui. It will be held from 8 to 14 December 2014.

Executive Director of SGIFF Yuni Hadi said: “Our thinking behind the Southeast Asian Film Lab is to unearth potential stories from the region, and explore the richness of Southeast Asian culture through the medium of film. Film is one of the fastest and most powerful ways of reaching the wider community. Through this creative collaboration between neighboring countries, we will build up mutual appreciation and respect for our heritage amongst the

participants in Singapore and the region.”

Ten participants will be selected to attend a series of master-classes and screenings with established practitioners from the region on possible writing approaches. They will also receive individual advice from mentors, and eventually conduct a story pitch in front of an industry panel.

Hadi added that the Southeast Asian Film Lab underscores the festival’s ambition to build and nurture the film industries in Singapore, as well as the wider Southeast Asian region.

To be eligible, screenwriters and/or writers/directors must be of Southeast Asian descent, aged between 18 to 35 years old; have at least two short films screened in international film festivals; and must not have made a feature length film before.

10th Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival is already in full effect. Enchanted Cinema, our new program section, is opening its door for the very first time, inviting all kids and parents to the screening of British animated hit film Chicken Run by Peter Lord and Nick Park.

In our main competition program Vicious Cat we present three ferocius films today. First of them will be Serbian fantastic horror Nymph which has just recently won the Audience Award at Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. The screening will be attended by director Milan Todorović, our last year's short film jury president and author of the first ex-Yu zombie film Zone of the Dead, producer Marko Jocić and actor Dragan Mićanović. Nymph also features legendary Italian actor Franco Nero, our last year's guest of honour, and it is a great pleasure to say that this collaboration was arranged right here in Ljutomer.

Open Air Cinema will be terrorized by today's second Vicious Cat candidate, explosive German thriller The Samurai, in which a young village policeman must face an ominous stranger wearing a woman's dress, wielding a samurai sword, and spreading destruction and death. The film was financed by Indiegogo campaign and has already won Melies d'Argent award at Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. Screning will be attended by writer / director Till Kleinert. He already made a name for himself with three award-winning short films that he made during his studies. The Samurai is his first feature film and his diploma film at the same time.

The third Vicious Cat contender will be Irish supernatural horror The Canal, directed by Ivan Kavanagh, a macabre tale of a film archivist who learns that his home was the site of a brutal series of murders many years ago. Did you think that new horror movies cannot terrify you anymore? With its masterfully crafted atmosphere, deliberate pace and extemely creepy visuals, The Canal will teach you how to fear again.

Our Shock Doc section will send shivers down your spine with documentary On Tender Hooks, directed by Kate Shenton who spent a year following diferent individuals and groups who hang themselves on hooks, transforming their bodies into bizzare art pieces that defy logic and challenge the most hardened of people's perceptions. The film depicts a wide variety of experience and opinions, and delves thoughtfully into this deeply misunderstood and exciting practice, showing how the ordinary human body can achieve extraordinary things.

Medieval TV drama A Miracle, featuring an ill nobleman going alone against a pack of bandits, will be the first film screened in our Retrospective section, dedicated to this year's guest of honour, Serbian director Djordje Kadijević.

We will find out that evil has no boundaries in British zombie horror The Dead 2: India by the Ford Brothers. Following the immense succes of its predecessor which dealt with the outbreak of zombie epidemic in Africa, The Dead 2 follows an American turbin engineer Nicholas who has to battle his way across three hundred miles of zombie infested Indian landscapes to reach his pregnant girlfriend and save her from the undead. Get ready for amazing amounts of thrilling action, death-defying stunts, emotional resonance and spine-tingling fright.

At the Hotel Stela Terrace, the program will start with the presentation of new horror novel The Seducer by our old friend and collaborator Dejan Ognjanović. Its story takes place in a rural area and deals with folk mysticism and superstition. Instead of the threat of direct violence, the emphasis is on the feeling of dread, horror, mystery and tension. Dejan Ognjanović is Serbian writer, film and literary critic, translator and essayist. On past editions of Grossmann he presented his books In Vivo, Faustian Screen: The Devil in Cinema, In the Hills, the Horrors: Serbian Horror Film, A Study in Terror and H. P. Lovecraft's best stories (Nekronomikon) which he edited and provided translations, additional notes and biography.

Noisy Cat competition will roar with Zoran Krema's documentary on cult Croatian band Grč which will give an insight into this uncompromising and unique group and its frontman Zoff. Grč are revered for their dark music, gloomy lyrics and shocking stage presence featuring animal heads and pools of blood. Another two documentaries in competition are Hard Soil – The Muddy Roots of American Music which traces the history and evolution of American Roots music and examines its social and cultural relevance in the 21st century, and Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, a revelatory exploration of a singularly unique artistic force, an oral, and aural, history of Husker Du's so-called "wild one", from his rocky family life through the formation of his most well-known band; from their bitter break-up into the musical projects that followed; from his troubled past to his hopes for the future.

More cinematic delicacies will be served within both short film competition programs, Slak's Vicous Cat and Melies d'Argent, offering a fierce selection of live-action and animated films, ranging from comedies and thrillers to all-out gorefests.

Near midnight will be the time for musical pleasures in the Oxygen Club where Ljutomer's own HC/punk veterans Odpisani will treat the audience with the premiere presentation of songs from their upcoming album, supported by Helland from Hungary and Eyecontact from Lendava.

More info on our film, wine and accompanying program can be found on our website:www.grossmann.si

When The Cat roars for the second time, it brings great joy to hearts and minds!

Sub-Saharan Africa Broadcast in association with channel ED and the 35th Durban International Film Festival

A world first will be taking place this month when a full week of African documentary films are broadcast across sub-Saharan Africa on DStv channel ED (channel 190) and GOtv (channel 65), from the Durban International Film Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from 17 to 27July.

This unique film event will see a diverse and exciting range of films screened across 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The AfriDocs Film Week will connect the largest film festival in Africa through a ‘film festival on your screen’ featuring documentary films from thirteen countries in Africa – The D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda.

“So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences”, says AfriDocs Executive Producer Don Edkins from Steps in Cape Town, “this heralds a new era of distribution for the continent.”

Films by African filmmakers Sani Elhadj Magori, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, Andrey Samoute Diarra, Annalet Steenkamp and Many Jacobson together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams, Abby Ginzberg and Göran Olsson amongst others, will be seen for the first time by a wide audience as a result of this collaboration.

Seven of the films screening at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) will also be part of the programme, including the award-winning Miners Shot Down, Concerning Violence, I Afrikaner, The Irresistible Rise of Moïse Katumbi and Soft Vengeance.

These African documentaries tell a wide range of stories; from films about great African artists, such as singer and activist Miriam Makeba (Mama Africa) and the Malian photographer Malik Sibidé (Dolce Vita Africana), to political and historical films about leaders Patrice Lumumba and Liberian President Sirleaf Johnson, as well as films dealing with revolutionaries, farmers, gangsters, musicians and evangelists.

This week-long film event is a special broadcast project from AfriDocs, the first weekly primetime documentary strand broadcasting across Africa. Every Tuesday night on ED (DStv channel 190) and GOtv (channel 65), AfriDocs broadcasts top African documentaries to 49 countries by satellite, and terrestrially to an additional 100 cities in 8 countries.

AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation.

Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Director of Social Impact Media at Bertha Philanthropies, said that the Bertha Foundation is proud to partner with Steps to help bring great documentary films to audiences across Africa, “Connecting documentary film to African audiences is something we have been hoping to do for some time now, and this is an ideal platform for that.”

Signs of Life: this new section explores cinema at the frontiers, with new narrative forms and formal innovations.Fuori concorso: for work from established masters and directors of international renown.

The 3rd day of Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival will start already at 13:00h, when the gates of Torture Garden shall open within the dark dungeons of Alcatraz Cinema. It will feature five extremely fierce genre extravaganzas, brought to us in a steel cage by our last year's short film jury member Julian Richards, co-founder of Jinga Films, our partners in this year's B-marathon of blood, laughs and weirdness. Two of these films he also directed – found footage shocker The Last Horror Movie, which was favourably compared to cult classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and macabre pagan thriller Darklands in which Rosemary's Baby meets The Wicker Man. Both films won numerous awards, including EFFFF's prestigious Melies d'Argent. But to get to them, you will have to witness the terror of the gruesome US horror The House With 100 Eyes which makes every so-called »torture porn« film blush like a schoolgirl, Canadian Tromaesque horror comedy Bad Meat which will make you sick to your stomach, and the notorius US arty exploitation The Bunny Game which is banned in UK.

Do not, no matter what, take you kids to the Torture Garden, but take them to the Enchanted Cinema instead, where they will be able to enjoy British animated family comedy Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, another hit film by Aardman studio.

Our special Metal Hurlant 40th anniversary tribute section will feature the legendary Canadian animation anthology Heavy Metal, inspired by stories by giants of comic book art such as Richard Corben, Berni Wrightson and Jean Giraud – Moebius, and featuring soundtrack by the likes of Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Trust and Devo.

A very special treat awaits action fans at Cineplexx Murska Sobota - an exclusive screening of Indonesian martial arts epic The Raid 2, lauded by critics as the greatest action film ever, chock full of breath-taking scenes that make Hollywood blockbusters look like child's play in comparison. No words of praise can adequately describe The Raid 2, so let's just say that this is definitely a film that you can't afford to miss!

In our Shock Doc section there will be an outbreak of Super 8 Madness. Director Fabrice Blin's documentary brings back the times of amateur low-budget horror films shot on 8mm film. Get acquainted with titles such as The Toilet Plunger Massacre, Indiana Fonebone and the Lost Toilet Seat, Close Encounter of the Bad Kind and Cannibal Aftermath!

Retrospective of films by Djordje Kadijević will continue with his extremely creepy metaphisycal horror The Protected One, a haunting story of a young man, followed by a mysterious man in black coat, who takes shelter in a mental hospital, only to find out that his follower has no intention of letting him go. In The Protected One, Kadijević masterfully creates a tense atmosphere of dread, achieving the heights of cinematic horror that only a few filmmakers were able to reach in the history of genre film.

Fans of extreme splatter will be taken care of by our Grossmann Grindhouse section, featuring Brazilian director Rodrigo Aragão's low-budget zombie gorefest Dark Sea where Braindead, Evil Dead 2 and Dagon meet on a tropical island in a brutal orgy of violence.

Open Air Cinema will have you laughing and crying with Hungarian dark comedy Heavenly Shift from our main competition program. Its story is set in 1992 and follows former medicine student Milan who escapes from the Bosnian battlefield to Budapest and gets a job as a part of a paramedic team. He soon finds out that his colleagues have a sinister business arrangement with a funeral director. Superb acting, numerous bizarre situations and pitch black humour are main features of writer/director Mark Bodzsar's debut film which has already taken festival audiences by storm and was awarded at this year's Fantasporto.

Hotel Stela terrace will be the scene of the main event of our wine program, public wine tasting of all the samples in competition for the Wine Champion Vicious Cat. Renowned wine writer, judge and lecturer Darrel Joseph, the main guest of the Wine Program, will give his expert opinion on each of the competing wines. The wine tasting will be also attended by this year's Slovenian Wine Queen Špela Štokelj.

A tremendous dose of dread will be provided by Czech anthology of ten short films entitled Pioneers of Horror which will be presented by directors Jiří Fábík and Pavel Soukup. This project was initiated by a young couple of filmmakers and horror fans, Josef Blazek and Adela Hrivnakova, and also includes famous names such as Marek Dobeš, Robert Jašków and Václav Vydra.

At the end of the day, full of cinematic pleasures and divine wine, your ears will be ferociously assaulted by US psychobilly trio Koffin Kats who will appear at Club Oxygen, along with dark rock'n'roll band Kripl from Slovenia.

The 9th Wavescape Surf Film Festival at DIFF celebrates almost a decade of bringing Durban an annual feast of surf culture, spearheaded by the world’s best surfing documentaries and shorts.

The outdoor screening on the lawns at the Bay of Plenty takes place this Sunday 20 July followed by five days of indoor screenings at Ster Kinekor Musgrave (Monday 21 to 26 July).

"Our 2014 edition features the most diverse and geographically disparate collection yet," said Steve Pike (Spike) co-founder of the festival and editor of wavescape.co.za, who will be introducing the films.

"We have a whopping lineup of 19 films, comprising 13 features and six shorts. Of particular interest to our audience are three documentaries featuring pioneering journeys into the wave-rich but unknown wildernesses of Alaska, Russia and Patagonia. Surfers have always enjoyed the spirit of exploration and these should sate that wanderlust."

Wavescape this year also offered subject matter ranging from gay surfing to extreme ski BASE jumping. Out in the Lineup chronicles the story of gay surfers in the US and Australia who challenge the establishment while travelling the surfing world to hear stories of transformation and hope.

The story of Shane McConkey, in the film simply entitled McConkey, chronicles the tragically heroic story of the American ski icon who evolved BASE jumping to a thrilling new level when he mixed skiing, BASE and wingsuit flying into a heady, hi-octane mix of adrenaline and acute danger.

"Geographically, the 2014 edition of Wavescape covers just about every corner of the surfing universe, with films also shot in Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, USA, South Africa and Chile."

"We have a strong feature documentary component, with a smattering of pure surf movies that feature cutting edge cinematic techniques, huge boosts in surfing moves and the hottest new soundtracks. These include Jordy Smith's film Now Now, and Taylor Steele's movie Innersection Black."

Several films focused on women surfing, including South African professional surfer Bianca Buitendag in Disguised in Nature; world champion Stephanie Gilmore in Stephanie in the Water; and 3 Killas y un kiwi - a fascinating look at Latino professionals (and one Kiwi) from South America, Spike said.

There's also Tide Lines, about a crew of South African surfers who sail the world collecting garbage, visiting the famous garbage gyre of the Pacific Ocean to highlight the need to conserve our oceans. The Old, the Young and the Sea covers the famous surfing routes of Europe in an eclectic mix of culture, kombis and crisp cold perfection.

"We even have a documentary about alternative rock band Switchfoot, who surf and play gigs on their 2012 world tour to Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Bali," Spike said.

Friday at Grossmann will be in the sign of Djordje Kadijević Master Class, taking place at 20:00h at the Main Square. It will be hosted by Dejan Ognjanović.

Master Class will be followed by a screening of Kadijević's cult 1973 film She-Butterfly, the first Yugoslavian horror. She-Butterfly was screened as a part of Tales of Mystery and Imagination series, and it stirred up controversy upon its first broadcasting due to literally scaring one viewer to death. At this year's Grossmann it will be shown on the big screen for the first time in Slovenia.

Culture House Cinema starts its program with 13:00h screening of Hungarian dark comedy Heavenly Shift from our Vicious Cat competition.

The famous archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones will enter the Enchanted Cinema with a crack of the whip, looking for a way out of the Temple of Doom in the second film of Steven Spielberg's popular franchise in which Indy finds himself in India.

No less than four episodes of French/Belgian TV series Metal Hurlant Chronicles will take you into a world of exciting adventures, fantastic landscapes, surprising twists and merciless action, featuring actors such as Michael Biehn (Terminator), John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen). Sreening will be attended by series's creator Guillaume Lubrano.

Three films from our Vicious Cat competition will be screened for the second time. Amazing German thriller The Samurai will be presented by writer/director Till Kleinert and followed by creepy Irish supernatural horror The Canal, while Serbian fantastic horror Nymph will be presented by director Milan Todorović, producer Marko Jocić and leading actor Dragan Mićanović.

Our Grossmann Grindhouse section will feature an attack of extreme nihilism in the form of Italian horror Beautiful People where home invasion and creature feature subgenres will meet in an unspeakably violent and gory way. Mandatory viewing for all splatter fans.

Alcatraz Cinema will be attacked by a swarm of fierce short films from our Slak's Vicious Cat and Melies d'Argent sections. They will be followed by three loud and proud music documentaries from our Noisy Cat competition program. Breadcrumb Trail is a documentary on US post-hardcore band Slint with a focus on their seminal final album, Spiderland. Marzidovshek Minimal Laboratorium portrays the (oc)cult Slovenian minimalist and sonic experimentator, innovator, performer and provocator, the immensely creative Mario Marzidovšek (1961-2011). Get Action!! presents the already disbanded Japanese garage rock'n'roll attraction Teengenerate, while British psychedelic caleidoscope Hypnoesis, presented by director Mickael Ankri, will take you on a fascinating journey through the streets of London.

Wind-Rattle Cinema will feature another adventure of ethnological cultural society Kunštni Prleki who will this time travel through vineyards, visit a fair and attend horse races.

The Subculture Fair will begin in the afternoon at the Main Square where there will also be a presentation of winemakers KZ Metlika, Zlati Grič, Hlebec and Kos at 20:30h.

In the end all roads will lead to Club Oxygen which will host a live appearance by Slovenian punk legends Niet, supported by Panicka from Slovenia.